Running
by ashleyfanfic
Summary: They only want to find a place to be...


**Title:** Running  
**Author: ****ashleyfanfic**  
**Rating:** M16 – graphic violence and language and undead peoples being killed!  
**Remix Couple:** Daryl Dixon/Beth Greene (The Walking Dead)  
**Summary:** They only want to find a place to be...  
**Author's Note:** To be honest, I was and still am a Carol/Daryl Shipper. They are my OTP from the Walking Dead. But, something about the episodes we got that were devoted to Beth and Daryl made me take a look at them in a new light.  
**Original Couple Notes:** The television series _The Walking Dead_ follows a small group of survivors after a zombie apocalypse. Daryl is a resourceful hunter within this group. He has a shady past with his brother Merle, but throughout the seasons, he's proven himself, becoming the righthand man for the group's leader, Rick Grimes. He might be a smartass, but he's extremely loyal and he's trusted by everyone. Eventually the group comes across Beth Greene and her family on a farm that her father, a veternarian named Hershel, owns. Beth enters a suicidal phase which culminates in an episode where she slits her wrists before changing her mind. In the show's fourth season, Daryl, Beth, and the rest of the group take refuge in a prison which they've cleared out. Beth cares for a baby, Judith, while Daryl helps to protect the prison from zombies (called "Walkers") and human enemies alike. An attack results in the decapitation of Hershel, greatly demoralizing the group, as Hershel served as both the father figure and the moral compass. Daryl and Beth end up separated from everyone else. Some of the dialogue in this story is from conversations between Beth and Daryl in the show and some of it is remixed. I hope you enjoy!  
**Author's Note 2:** Following the show's terminology, I will refer to the zombies as Walkers.

*~*

Running. It's all we ever seem to do anymore. Ever since it all happened, it's been a non-stop cardio workout, the type they tell you to do for thirty minutes before taking a break. But there's never a break, never a lull. Danger lurks around every corner; we're being hunted like animals. We had taken refuge with the other surivovrs inside Hogwarts—it was a safe haven, impenetrable, we thought. But we wrong. There are people bent on destruction, and they demolished it in the blink of an eye.

We got separated from everyone else. I know she'd rather be with anyone but me. We've never gotten along. In fact, we've been enemies for as long as I can remember. But this outbreak, this disease, whatever it is, it makes the strangest allies.

My job at the camp wasn't to protect anyone. I'd been a coward, out for self-preservation ever since I could think. But then, suddenly, people's lives depended on me. I had to put selfishness aside. To fight these things off, we had to work together.

We discovered that our wands were useless. It took more than one battle to figure that out. _They_ were attracted to magic, able to see it in a way that we could not. When I've had to, I've killed—I learned early on that the brain is what you aim for—but I don't like the killing. In fact, I hate it. I've never been one who could stomach death. I was forced to be around it in my youth. It changed me irrevocably. Death is permanent, final. Every time I see the reanimated corpses, I remember that death comes for us all, but even then we might not find peace. There is no peace; there is no escape. We either die and become killers or we live long enough to do the killing. There are times when I want it all to be over, times when I long to just be out of this entire situation. But I fear the alternative: becoming a monster. I've been running from that for a long time, now.

She's made a camp. At least, a temporary camp. Not sure how long she'll think it's safe to stay here. I'm relying on her instincts. She's a fighter, a survivor, and she's smarter than anyone ever gave her credit. She's been tracking the way she thinks her other friends had gone, but I think she's lost their trail and she hasn't told me yet. I think she's afraid to.

She told me that we were in the Forest of Dean. Something about the way she said that made me realize that it held memories for her, both good and bad. She's not much for conversation these days, not since we lost her friends. Not since Hogwarts fell completely.

We joined the group a while ago, my mother and I, when our Manor and grounds were overrun. We'd gone to Hogwarts, knowing that if anywhere was safe, it was there, in the walls of that formidable school. Potter had to convince the rest of the group to trust us. Not really us. My mother. Apparently, saving the Chosen One's life isn't as easily forgotten as some would think. Then they discovered my mother's great skill with Healing spells—she'd learned during the last war that they were a necessity. Using her skills, she ingratiated herself with everyone, especially Potter. She tried to teach me, adamant that I become useful and help those who had so graciously taken us in, but I admit that my heart wasn't in it.

Then I lost her. You could never tell, but it seemed that everyone suffered the loss with me, even Hermione. Even now, she won't talk about it. 

But we hadn't expected that they would grab her and use her as leverage against us. We knew that the Death Eaters were still in full force. They'd been trying for a long time to take Hogwarts. After one such battle, during which they managed to deal heavy blows to the castle, they were finally overrun and it was quiet for months.

But Walden McNair was not one who would simply give up. He had escaped and he was still out there. We learned later that he watching us the entire time. He learned our operations and our schedules; he learned how we traveled in groups and how we cleared buildings. We never even considered that there could enemies lurking outside the magic gates, but we were his enemies, and he watched us, learned our habits through and through. They had to have Hogwarts. It was the only safe haven still hidden away from the world of the dead.

The elves had gone, going wherever it was that elves went, and so we needed food and supplies. My mother and her protector at the time, Blaise, had been out in the forest, looking for some herbs to be used in healing salves when Walden and his group grabbed them.

McNair was always an evil bastard. He was sadistic actually. This new world order had made him even more vicious. When he arrived at the gate, demanding that we all disperse, he had an actual head hanging from the rope tied about his waist. He was a danger, and Potter made a valiant effort to get him to release them both. But McNair wouldn't do so, not unless we relinquished the castle. My mother actually smiled when Potter suggested that we could all live together and stay out of one another's way. I knew that was the dumbest thing I'd ever heard.

It was a lie. I knew it. Potter knew it. Worst of all, McNair knew it. When I close my eyes, I always see her smiling face right before the sword sliced into her neck. Everything was a blur after that. I wanted everyone to suffer, everyone to pay. No one can ever know my loss. No one can ever understand what I felt. I wanted the world to pay for taking away such a positive force. When everything else had gone to Hell, my mother had stayed my beacon of light. I was angry; I'm still angry. I loved her; I still love her. She was my protector, my advocate, my life. And to see her brutalized, to have seen her brutalized, to remember seeing her brutalized induces in me a rage I can't process without wanting to kill everything in my path. But I hate killing.

I hate this world. 

Hermione Granger is the only reason I'm alive. She found me in the main courtyard and convinced me to leave. Our destination is wherever the remaining members of our group are, and we have no idea who that could be.

I hate the way she looks at me.

She's sitting, silently staring into the fire. She used to talk all the time, I used to hate that. Her silence is worse. I miss those Hogwarts days when we would hurl insults at one another, as if what we disliked about one another actually mattered.

I only realize I'm staring at her when she looks up at me and narrows her eyes. "What?"

Do I even what to tell her what I'm really thinking? That we're both dead? Maybe not her, not yet, but there's no way we'll survive this. Surely she knows that, so is it even worth saying?

It's not. It's in no way productive. So instead, I ask, "How far behind them do you think we are?"

It's a valid question. How much further do we have to travel until we come across some sort of civilization again? Until there is a buffer between the two of us?

Her silence makes me nervous and she then hangs her head and sighs. "We've stopped here because _here_ is where I lost their trail." Her voice is soft, weary, and full of resignation. She's come to the same realization that I have: it's just the two of us now, and that doesn't bode well for our future. We've never managed to work well together. We're diametrically different. She's a fighter, I'm not. She runs towards the fights, I run from the fights.

I put my head in my hands, rub my eyes with my palms, and am accosted once more with the vision of my mother being beheaded. When I lift my head and open my eyes to find her staring at me, I'm not sure if it's disdain or disinterest. But I know that she hates that she's stuck with me and not someone more useful. She finally uses her foot to brush out the fire. "Get some sleep. We're going South in the morning."

I want to ask _why south_, but I don't want it to start a fight. I'm tired of fighting. I hate sleeping out in the open like this, too. We've set up string with tin cans around the perimeter to alert us to sound, but it doesn't comfort me. Hogwarts made me complacent. It made all of us complacent. It was our complacency that screwed us over, in the end. It made taking us, taking Hogwarts, so easy. We never thought we could be driven out. We never thought it could be taken from us.

We were wrong.

*~*

The knife in my hand feels heavy as I follow behind her. She's got a crossbow, and where she found a crossbow, I have no idea. As we move through the forest, the faint gurgle of walkers can be heard, but it's almost a constant sound these days. Like the birds chirping in the air, the laborious breathing of the dead forms reverberate around us. They aren't close, as far as I can tell, but she's got her bow at the ready. She stops for a moment, and I catch up to her to notice a bit of blood on a nearby leaf.

She frowns. "It's fresh."

She looks around a little more, stooping to the ground, and that's when I see the footprint freshly made in the mud. It looks to be a child's. When Granger looks up at me, I can tell what she's thinking without her having to say a word.

"They could still be alive." She walks a few feet away and points out some branches broken at arm level. "Whoever came through here did it in a hurry." 

I should know how she's doing this. "How can you tell?" I ask.

She explains, "The person was already bleeding. Then, they took off in a hurry. Notice the breaks go in the same direction and the impact of the prints is heavier towards the toes than the heel." She turns to look at me, holding the crossbow with the arrow pointing into the air. "You've finally taken an interest in tracking?"

She's actually speaking to me, not grunting at me as if she were some Neanderthal. "After the last debacle, I think it might be a handy skill to have," I say, hoping that she doesn't take what I say with any sort of malice.

She tucks a curl from her ponytail back behind her ear and nods. "They went this way," she says as she continues to follow the footprints until we reach rail lines.

I know where we are, and am suddenly comforted knowing we're not far from Dufftown. I hear an arrow fly off the crossbow and turn to see that she's just taken out one of three walkers that are currently eating what look to be children. One of the walkers drops its meal to come at us. Hermione drops the bow, and then she has her in axe in her hand. I take action, too. I kill the one still eating.

I know these two children. I know the man who was with them. They'd all been at Hogwarts with us. I'm so sick of seeing death. The thought comes again: I can opt out, I can finish this, I can be done with it all.

I hear a sniffle from behind me and turn to see that she's crying. I'll admit that I hate it when women cry. Especially this one, especially now. She's not allowed to cry. She's supposed to be the strong one. She's the warrior.

But her tears are necessary. A part of the grieving process. For all we know, this is the fate that has befallen all of our friends and comrades. It's a sentiment I want to express more than I can say, but I can't put it into words—or let the tears fall, for I fear that if I do, they'll never stop.

*~*

We're at a small farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. Dufftown was overrun, so we got out of there as fast as we could. Now I'm not sure how far from the town we are exactly. I just know that if we don't get some water and food soon, I'm not going to be able to go much further. She walks up onto the steps and holds a finger up to me. My knife is in my hand as she bangs on the door and we wait. It's a process that she and Potter designed for clearing. It's effective.

There's no shuffling from inside so she tries the handle of the door and it opens. Ever vigilant, she holds the bow up, ready to take down the first sign of movement.

We clear each room, and when the house is free of Walkers, we push the sofa against the door and move a large armoire against the back door. I search through the kitchen and manage to find a jar of fruit preserves and what looks and smells to be beef jerky. I return to the room where she's sitting on the sofa, frowning and tinkering with her bow. There must be something wrong with her bow sight.

Opening the jar of preserves, I hand her a spoon and a few pieces of the jerky. "Here," I say.

She puts the bow down and accepts the spoon. I plop down beside her and throw my feet on the coffee table, crossing one over the other at the ankle. It's a lumpy sofa, not comfortable at all.

"I wish we had some booze," she says.

I frown, examining her. It's an odd request coming from her. "You don't strike me as much of a drinker."

She shakes her head. "I'm not. Harry always called me a lightweight." The ghost of a smile flitters across her face. 

Just as I thought. "It's just not for some people," I say, offhandedly, certain that will mark the end of friendliness for the evening.

"What about you?" Hermione says suddenly. "Are you… are you a lightweight?"

I pause with the preserves half-way to my mouth, amazed that we're actually having a conversation. Then I shrug. "In Slytherin we had alcohol quite often."

"For what? Celebrations?"

"Sure, if you celebrate Saturdays," I say with a smile of my own. It's a good joke, but the thought of how life used to be makes it hard to laugh. "We didn't really need a reason. It was just something we did."

Hermione's examining the jerky now. "How did you manage to get it into the castle?" she says as she turns it over in her hands.

"Snape was our Head of House. We got hassled enough by the other houses as it was. I think he just let us have that vice. Besides, we never let anyone under fourth year have any. They couldn't keep a secret to save their lives anyway. But we older students knew that the unspoken rule: we didn't talk about it with anyone else."

I can feel her eyes on me "i_You/i_ were hassled by i_other/i_ houses? When was Slytherin ever _hassled_?"

I can't understand her source of the anger. Does she think I'm lying? "Quite often," I say trying to keep my tone even. I nibble at the preserves and dig through my sack for our last bottle of water. "Ravenclaws were the worst."

"i_Slytherins/i_ were the worst."

This stops me. I sit up slowly and turn to face her. "You're wrong. We were belittled by people in all the houses, but Ravenclaws always got in more jibes than the others. Every house has a reputation, you know that. You Gryffindors weren't smarter than us, but you were known to be i_so very brave/i._ Hufflepuffs had the heart, Ravenclaws had the brains. And what were we? We were evil. That was all we ever could be. And that's just all there is to it. All the other houses sat on the pedestals with their prejudices and judged us. So we suffered."

"That's why you always kept to yourselves, then?"

"Yes, that's why we were so protective of our own."

"And it's got nothing to do with blood purity."

I can't help but sneer. "You would think that, wouldn't you?"

"You'll forgive me. Something about saying I was next after the Muggles your father was torturing and calling me a Mudblood…"

"Oh, I disliked you! But mostly because of your mouth. I was out to prove myself better than you. You were so superior, especially towards Slytherins, and they were my housemates, my family. I would have fought for any of my housemates just as they would have done for me. When everyone thinks you're evil, sometimes you need people to tell you that you aren't. So_ iforgive me/i _if I used your blood against you," I say, standing up. When I leave the room, I don't look to see her expression.

I'm not sure how long I'm gone, but when I reenter, I find her hanging blankets in the windows to block out the outside world.

There's a gargle nearby. Very close. We hear it at the same time, and, my knife already in hand, I sprint to a still uncovered window. Thankfully, it's only one, and he's seen better days. His jaw is hanging by only one hinge, his clothes ripped to pieces, and there's a large, festered bite on his shoulder. That's the source of his manifestation.

He bumps against the house a few times.

"Do you think we should take care of it?" I ask. She's clearly not forgotten what I said before I left the room, so it's up to me to break the silence.

She sets her crossbow on the floor beside the window and shakes her head. "Not yet. Only if he starts making too much noise." She moves to the other window, but I stand and stare at the dead man reaching for me.

When everything first turned to hell, I used to feel a kind of fear that not even the greatest poet could put into words. It was terror at its purest. But now, it's almost more effort to kill one than it's worth. I wonder if Hermione feels the same way.

"Are you going to stand there and stare at it all day?"

I look up at her and frown. "What else would you have me do?"

She shrugs and moves into the kitchen to comb through the cabinets more thoroughly. "Ah ha!" she exclaims as she pulls a bottle out from the back of one of the lower cabinets. It's Ogden's. This was a wizarding house.

She grabs two glasses, places them on the kitchen table, and pours. She pushed one across the table towards me. Even if it's not a peace offering, I'll take it. I need a drink about now.

She downs the drink in one go, wincing and coughing and response, and I feel a little smug as I take my time about it. I know I'm not used to alcohol anymore, and despite the preserves and jerky, there's certainly not enough food in my stomach to keep me from getting shitfaced. Maybe it's what we both deserved, though, getting shitfaced. By all accounts, we're the only two people alive in this whole world, and that thought alone is enough to make me nearly vomit up all that we've eaten. I gulp the rest of my Ogden's.

*~*

"What's the point of this game?" Herione's smile is infectious. She's a friendly drunk and I understand, now, why Potter and Weasley always kept her away from the stuff.

"You name something you've never done and if the other person has done it they drink," I answer. I've played this game too many times count. Pansy, Blaise, Tracey, Daphne and Theo were always up for a game. It usually ended with snogging or shagging, and everyone was fine with that. Playing with Granger could be an interesting development.

Are you missing a beat here? What is he retorting to?

"I've never shot a crossbow," I retort.

She sips at her drink and leans her head on her hand. "Hmmm, I've never played Quidditch."

I roll my eyes. Only Granger could make this game so boring. I sip my drink anyway and decide to up the ante. "I've never shagged in Gryffindor tower."

Hermione doesn't drink, only raising an eyebrow at me.

"Really? Never? Don't tell me you were a virgin when you left Hogwarts."

"Just because I didn't shag in my tower didn't mean I was a virgin."

I smirked. "Were you?"

"I'm not answering that question."

At that, I took a drink as I've lost. "Fine," I acquiesce. "It's your turn."

"I've never gotten a tattoo."

I drink to that one. The mark on my left forearm was burned, not insertion of ink, but it is the wizarding equivalent of a tattoo. "I've never shagged one of my best friends," I say.

She narrows her eyes at me. "Is that what you think of me? And why are all of your questions about shagging?"

I raise an eyebrow. "I assumed that..."

"Right, you assumed. Drink," she says, and she stands and walks away from the table to lean against the counter.

I watch her as she takes several deep breaths, obviously trying to steady herself. She turns to face me, and shouts. "I've never lived in a manor! I've never put more value in what someone could offer me than what the person was actually worth!"

I can hear the walker outside getting riled up at the sound. I scowl. "Granger, quiet down!" I hiss.

She crosses the room, grabs her bow, and starts for the door, which she kicks out of the way when she reaches it. "Why? Let's go see our little friend," she said, swaying slightly.

I follow her quickly, my knife in my hand, and I watch as she takes an arrow and pin the Walker to a tree.

"You want to shoot a crossbow? Now's your chance." She thrusts the weapon into my hands and forces me to fire an arrow. It hits the dead man into the other shoulder.

"Granger, knock it off!" I try to shove her away from me, but she's persistent and, somehow, she's loaded it with another arrow.

"Come on! Try again! Be useful!" She shoves it into my hands again. When I don't shoot, she aims at its face, low enough not to hit the brain. It lands true.

"All out of arrows. Let's pull out a few and give it some more practice," she says as she walks towards it.

Suddenly furious, I get to the walker first and plant my knife into its brain, ending its miserable existence.

She shoves me. "What did you do that for? We were having fun!"

"No, that's not fun! Killing them isn't supposed to be fun!"

"What the hell do you know about anything!"

I've had it with her attitude. I'm tired of it. "I know that when you look at me, all you see is another dead man!"

She takes a step back and frowns. "Is that what you think?"

I jab a finger in her face. "It's what I know. I'm not Potter, or Weasley, or even Blaise. I'm some coward who only survives because he runs, and it makes you pity me because you know I'm going to die."

She shoves me again. "You don't know anything!" With that, she turns, putting her back to me, and I know she's crying. But these are tears of anger. "This is all my fault. I knew there was a threat out there. We shouldn't have stopped looking. If Blaise and I had kept looking..."

And now I feel like shit. She's been blaming herself for everything that happened.

"He came right up to our gate...and your mum..." She shakes her head. "I could have stopped him!"

There's nothing I can do that will make her feel better, but I wrap my arms around her all the same, resting my head against the back of hers. She leans against me, and, for the first time, we comfort each other. Her hands clutch mine where they are wrapped around her waist. I feel tears gather in my eyes, but I steel myself and push the urge to cry away. I won't cry. I can't.

I simply can't.

*~*

Back in the living room, we're seated at the table again, but this time the alcohol is missing. I'm unsure, really, what she did with it, but the way my stomach is turning, I don't really care.

"We were all kidding ourselves," I say finally. It's a truth one of us has to say out loud. "We were too comfortable. Too at home. This world isn't meant for that. Peace just...isn't something we can have." I sound hopeless, but I don't care.

She's got her feet propped on one of the other chairs, and the look on her face is sad. I hate it. I remember the smile she had on her face not long ago, and I would give nearly anything to see it again. "Maybe."

"Still unconvinced?" I ask, truly wondering how she can have hope in such a dire situation. "Truth is, it won't be long until something else happens. Everywhere we turn, we find danger, death mocking us. It won't be long until I'm gone."

"You're a horrible drunk," she says. She turns to look out the window at the darkened sky.

"You know it," I insist. "I'll die before long."

She shakes her head, frowning. "You know what, Draco Malfoy, you vastly underestimate your usefulness." She sighs and leans her head back. "You always valued the wrong things, things that didn't matter. Money, blood status. You never saw the true value in people's abilities."

I fold my arms over my chest, skeptical. "And what abilities should I have valued? I should have just somehow known that you would be handy in such a time as this?"

"Yes," she answers with a smile. "I'm good at everything. Surviving is just one more thing."

I laugh at that, and it feels good, and it causes her to laugh as well.

But soon enough, we both grow silent again. She tilts her head at me. "You may surprise yourself, Malfoy."

I shrug. "It means something that you think so," I admit.

She eyes me for a moment and sighs. "You're a fighter, whether you realize it or not. You may not like it, hell, none of us like it, but at this point what choice do we have? We fight or we die. And you've survived this long. Maybe there's a reason."

"There is no reason," I say finally. "For any of this. It's illogical. The dead rising from the grave, killing people, death everywhere we look. None of this is logical," I say softly. "You getting stuck with me isn't logical."

She shrugs. "Maybe not. But it happened." She folds her arms over her chest and leans back in her chair a bit. "It could be worse."

"How's that?" I ask. It can't really get worse than one's ultimate protector being someone who's hated you since childhood, especially when you actually need a protector.

"We could be alone, completely alone," she says, looking at me. "That would be worse. At least this way we have someone to see the end with."

I roll my eyes. "You're a terrible drunk."

She laughs and kicks me. "And you're not much better."

I take a deep breath and fold my hands beneath my head. "Let's get some sleep. We should see if we can find some more houses and make a better run."

*~*

The last two houses we've rifled have proven to contain useful things. The first of these useful things was a knife sharpener, the second a handgun hidden away in one of the upstairs bedrooms. I also found a box of ammo. Hermione tucked the ammo into her bag as it was lightweight; heavier things went in my bag. It was only fair. I was able to carry more than she was. The bow restricted her movement too much.

We're on our way now to another house, hoping to find more before we ditch this place for good, when we hear the familiar gurgling and hacking of a Walker. It sounds like it's ahead of us. We move slowly, not wanting to make any sound as we approach, Hermione on point and me circling behind her. I stop her when I see that it has a gun. "Look. Gun," I whisper into her ear, and she steps forward only to let out a yelp as she trips and hits the ground quickly.

The Walker drops the food it was eating; it's decided to come for fresh meat. I take it out with my knife and dash away the ephemera, then turn back to Hermione to see that her dragon boot has caught in what seems to be a bear trap. I manage to pry it open and allow her to pull her foot loose.

"Can you walk?" I extend a hand to help her up. She staggers to her feet. The trap hasn't puncture through the hide of the boot, but she favors her foot as she stands.

"Not really," she says.

As she stands there, wincing, clearly gearing herself up to walk with the pain, I decide to make myself useful. I retrieve the gun from the Walker and examine the clip to see that it was only fired once. I go through the rest of the body and find another hunting knife and a full clip in one of his pockets. I turn back to see her placing the crossbow back around her shoulder.

"Let's go," she says, finally, and she once again takes point, limping as she does so. If we have to run, there's going to be a problem. After about twenty minutes, we we come to a clearing. It's another farm house. She stops me and sits on the ground, rubbing her ankle. When she stands, I heave a sigh. "How far away would you say that house is?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. A hundred meters? Why?"

I take her crossbow from her, thread my backpack onto her shoulders, and turn my back to her. "Hop on."

I can't see her face, but I can hear her scoff and feel the weight of the crossbow as she placed its strap over my neck and it hits the top of my thighs. How she manages to lift this thing and fire it accurately is beyond me, but I'm tired of waiting for her to comply.

"Are you serious?" she finally asks.

"I think we can make it there without much incident," I say to her, and this time I hear her shuffle towards me. Then, I feel her weight on my back, and I grasp her thighs and lift her higher. I feel her hands on my shoulders—she's tense.

"Relax, Granger," I say. "Stiffening up makes it harder to hold you."

She does relax a bit, and it's not long before we're walking through a graveyard. The headstones are all worn, the engravings are hard to read. One of them, however, is clear, and when I see it, I have to stop. I set Granger down on her feet as I lean back against the headstone behind me and look at the engraving of the one in front of me.

_Beloved Mother_

Hermione steps forward, places wildflowers she's picked on top of the stone. I've been standing here a while, I guess. When she comes back to stand beside me, she reaches for my hand, and I'm surprised. But I curl my fingers with hers, and, together, we take a the moment remember how much we've lost in the last few days—not just how much, but who. My mother's kind, beautiful eyes, her pale, elegant hands, her graceful walk—these images rise before me, unbidden. I will never see her smile again.

I'm pulled back to the present by Hermione, who has leaned her head against my shoulder. Her brown hair, pulled back into a ponytail, brushes my arm. She always wears it that way, now. It's never left down to in curls, the way she had once been notorious for.

I release her hand and bend over, my back to her once more, indicating I'm ready to go.

When she's situated on my back once more, I start making my way to the small farmhouse. My movements are slow by caution and neccesity; on my back, I carry not just her weight, but the weight of her bag, and mine, and her crossbow. At the top step, I set her on her feet.

I follow the protocol. I bang on the front door, waiting for the sound of shuffling. After a few moments of silence, I try the knob. The door opens. Hermione moves in front of me, her bow raised—this is the way we've been clearing, and, I suppose, even in jured, she still wants to be in charge. But I grab her arm and hold her back. Truth is, if we have to run, she'll need a head start.

But the house is spotless. "It's clean," I say.

She moves over to a bookshelf that has some small knick-knacks on it as I examine a parlor.

"Someone's been taking care of it," she says finally.

I turn to her, an uneasiness growing inside me, one I can't put into words. "We should leave."

"Let's see what's here, first," she insists, walking away from me into another room. I roll my eyes and follow her, my knife in one hand and the gun we've found in the other. Thankfully I've been taught how to fire the things. They're dead effective against walkers . I'm not the best shot, but I can still kill the damn things if they're close enough. For both our sakes, I hope they'll never be that close again.

In the kitchen, she searches through the cupboards while I dig throw drawers. When she exlaims, "I was right! This is someone's stash," I quickly stash the can opener in my hand in a pocket before joining her.

She's found shelves stocked with cans of hash, some assorted vegetables, several jars of preserves, and a few cases of cola. Finnegan would have been thrilled. He was always talking about he just wanted cola one more time, and every run he was hopeful they would find some. But they never did. Not before he died.

"Let's just take a few things and then leave, like you said," she says, pulling a few things from the shelves and stuffing them into my pack. Carrying them is going to be hell, but anything goes at this point if it helps us survive.

I catch her hands, stopping her, and direct her to a chair in the other room. I'm fully capable of loading up a bag, after all. I take my time searching throug the cabinet and the adjoining pantry, trying to find light and long-lasting food to take with us. When I rejoin her, she has pen and paper, and she's scribbling on the desk.

"What are you writing?" I ask.

"A 'thank you' note," she answers, not looking up at me as she continues.

Is she serious? Now is not the time for polite correspondence. "Why?"

She sighs and meets my eyes squarely. "There has to be some form of…civility in this world if it's to ever come out of this."

It's endearing that she believes there will be a way out of this. The facts are these: we'll both die eventually, probably sooner than later, and probably me before her. There are only two of us, and there's millions of walkers. I don't care how good she is with that crossbow, two people can't save the world. The decay's already come, and it's spread, and it's too late now.

She smiles at me and shakes her head. "You think it's a waste of time." It's not a question. She states it as fact.

"Yes. There's no kindness anymore, Granger. All that's left is death and destruction."

She returns to she was doing, ignored me. I might as well have not even tried. I look around the house some more, stashing what we'll need. Then I realize traveling with her on a bum foot would be stupid. Yes, house isn't safe, and we need to move on, but we can't go far with her ankle injured.

Even before I suggest it, I know she'll have a seizure at the mention of magic. But I hope she'll see the merits of my line of thinking.

"What about your ankle?" I say, returning to the room she's in.

"What about it?" She continues writing. I roll my eyes. i_Of course/i_ anything Granger writes would not be brief.

"You can't travel very far on the injured ankle. We'll have to get somewhere safe and…"

"What are you getting at?"

I reach into my bag and remove my wand. "Let me heal it."

She looks at me wearily. "No."

"Granger…"

"Malfoy, I understand what you're saying, but magic attracts them. We can't risk that it would call a passing herd to us."

"So what's your suggestion? We leave here and hope we can get somewhere that's safe to stay until your ankle is better? That could be days from now. We'll be horribly slow if I have to carry you, but if you walk on that, you'll only make it worse. And we need to keep moving to see if we can find someone…"

I'm not really sure where I'm going with that thought. The truth is, there aren't people that we should trust. In fact, there are probably more dangerous people out there than we've already encountered. And Granger's a woman. It's an additional concern. Civilization has gone to hell, and people take what they want, atrocity or not.

I'm broken away from my thoughts by the sound of a dog barking. I follow the sound into the kitchen to look through the draperies on the side windows at the dog. When I open the door to try to lure him inside, he runs away. The loss of his unexpected company hits me hard. I haven't seen a dog in ages. It was a piece of normalcy, something familiar and encouraging, that maybe something good was still left in this world, but it turned at sight of me and fled.

When I turn, I find Hermione at the entry way to the kitchen. "You shouldn't be up walking around," I say.

"But there was a dog."

I want to mock her for her optimism, but I remember that only seconds before, I had felt that too. To mock her disappointment now would be to make little of my own. She props her weight on the door frame and folds her arms across her chest. "Let's stay here tonight?"

"Are you out of your mind?"

"Hear me out."

I bite my tongue and allow her to continue. She nods and moves back to the kitchen, limping as she does so. "As you said, it would be hard for me to move efficiently right now. Let's stay here tonight. If my ankle isn't healed by tomorrow morning, I'll let you heal it with magic and we can be on our way."

A compromise. At this point, I'll take it. I'm exhausted, and it'll be nice to stay somewhere that seems secure, even if it isn't. I drop the bags beside the table and sit beside her. "Fine. What do we do until then?"

She gives me a smile that, I must admit, makes me feel better. Lighter. It gives me pause when I realize that the world is so dark now that even a smile makes me relax. Still, even if a smile won't save the world or even our lives, for a moment, it makes me believe that everything can and will be simple again.

*~*

The sun is setting when I tie the string of cans to the front stoop. It reminds me of the nights we made camp in the wilderness after we lost Hogwarts. When I finish, I look around and notice a few walkers in the field to the west, but there are only two, and we learned long ago not to waste energy. It's unnecessary exposure. Fight them when you have to, otherwise, reserve your energy and strength.

From inside the house, I can hear the sound of a piano. I find her in one of the side rooms, pressing the keys softly, playing a song she seems to know by memory. There are a few candles lit, and the windows have been covered with the bedclothes from the upstairs. Her soft, lyrical playing and the sight of her sitting there in peace, creating music, stirs me.

Attachment to other people is dangerous. We're in a precarious situation and I shouldn't be allowing myself to feel…anything. Emotions are a liability. That's always been my belief.

Of course, Hermione's never been one to prescribe to that sort of thinking. But I can't let myself hope that she feels the same way. When she stops playing, I move into the room and lay back on one of the sofas, kicking my feet up on the upholstery. The pillows beneath me conform nicely to my shape. It's the most comfortable I've been in a while.

She turns and looks at me, pausing momentarily to stare at my boots.

"Why did you stop?" I ask. I liked the music. It was soothing.

"The song was done."

"Did you write it?"

She smirks as she shakes her head. "Nope. It's by an American band. Nine Inch Nails."

I tilted my head at her considering her. I'm very surprised that she liked the song enough to memorize how to play it, and just a little surprised that someone would name their musical group Nine Inch Nails. But we're finally talking about something other than the end of the world, and though it seems like a pointless conversation, at this point, I'll go with it. "What's it called?"

"Hurt."

"Is it your favorite?" She shrugs.

I wonder why she's suddenly being so shy. "Why don't you play it again?"

"Really?"

"Why not?"

She hesitates only a moment. Then, she's back at it, and the slow and methodical piece nearly lulls me to sleep. It's haunting and beautiful, and it sets the perfect background for this destroyed world and our role in it.

As I watch her, I realize that I'm too far gone to actually get out. Her focus is on the keyboard, so I can only see her profile. With the light from the candles flickering in the room, she looks beautiful. We're both completely filthy—we haven't seen a good shower in nearly a year. But I've never thought her to be more lovely than in this moment, lost in playing this haunting melody.

I force myself to turn away. Nothing good can come from these burgeoning feelings stirring within me. If I act upon them, disaster will follow in, and we're already in a world where only the bad comes to light. I won't act on this, I can't. I'll put it off forever.

But, for now, I'll enjoy the serenity in her playing. 


End file.
